Prefabricated housing for dwelling is well known. Some prefabricated housing modules were factory built and transported to a local building site via truck trailer. These housing modules failed when competing with site built homes due to high costs and/or extreme designs.
More recent attempts have been made to overcome the associated high costs with early prefabricated housing in an effort to compete with conventional homes. These prefabricated housing systems were designed as wide-load truck size sections, which were joined on site. These designs suffered from drawbacks such as the shipping of empty space and the performance of extensive redundant site work to reconnect the modules and their associated components. These attempts, which have a limited delivery radius of a few hundred miles, also disadvantageously failed to achieve high volumes or mass production and failed to address the issues of very low cost, sustainability and worldwide distribution of housing units for residential dwellings. These attempts also do not provide a solution to the worldwide challenges of providing a domicile of shelter and safety for those in need of a home and especially in underdeveloped geographies. People living in underdeveloped geographies lack access to safe drinking water, basic sanitation, and have no access to grid electricity. Over one billion people have no access to clean water, or basic sanitation systems. Securing water has become a challenge in many parts of the world, and in part due to the withdrawing of more water from underground aquifers than can be replaced. Rainwater harvesting with basic septic sanitary systems on a house-by-house basis is a method that will make life sustainable throughout the world. In addition, manufactured housing to date has failed to consolidate demand and as a result is not able to take advantage of high volume mass production to reduce cost. Such limited regional use fails to capture adequate demand in volume to apply high technology solutions, such as robotic assembly lines, and mass produced sub-assemblies for the purpose of reducing costs. As a result, no known prefabricated manufactured housing to date has achieved an affordable solution in the context of worldwide need, let alone a sustainable, off grid solution.
Intermodal shipping containers bring goods to every corner of the world. Many cities include shipping ports that have the capability of handling these standard shipping containers. Standards are determined by the International Organization For Standardization (ISO), which is located in Geneva, Switzerland and publishes the International Standards. For example, four common container lengths include 10 foot (ft), 20 ft, 30 ft, and 40 ft. The 20 ft container is the most common length worldwide and the ISO provides International Standards for the 20 ft container. For example, such published ISO standards for a 20 ft container include a volume of 1,169 ft3, a maximum gross mass of 52,910 lbs, an empty weight of 4,850 lbs, and a net load of 48,060 lbs.
Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using standard ISO containers. Such shipping containers can be transported by ship, rail, truck or air. However, due to the abundant use of these shipping containers especially in regions which do not export goods, the return of these shipping containers has become a drawback and must be figured into their cost.
Therefore, it would be desirable to overcome the disadvantages and drawbacks of the prior art with a single, self-contained dual use container/housing-core configured for containerization and also for related methods for construction of a dwelling, which efficiently utilizes the container and all materials, systems, spaces and equipment therein. Further, it would be desirable if the housing core and related methods and systems for intermodal freight transport provide low cost, sustaining domiciles of shelter and safety for those in need of a house in various geographies for worldwide distribution. It is most desirable that the housing core and related methods and systems of the present disclosure are advantageously employed to provide an affordable home that can be self-sustaining, and utilizes renewable energy and conservation techniques such that the home avoids drawing on non-renewable resources.